Gluu Glossary

Business Process Reengineering (BPR)

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is the radical redesign of a business process to achieve a dramatic improvement in performance, rather than a series of small adjustments to what already exists.

Associated with Michael Hammer, BPR starts from a blank page: why do we do this process at all, what outcome should it deliver, and which steps or approvals are no longer necessary? That’s the difference from ordinary process improvement, which optimizes the process you have – BPR asks whether you should have it in this shape at all. It tends to come up during major digital transformation, a merger, or when customer expectations have shifted enough that incremental fixes can’t close the gap.

It also carries more risk than incremental change, since redesigning roles, systems, and workflows at the same time requires strong sponsorship and real change management – not just a new process diagram.